mark sowden
always looking
sometimes finding
occasionally making
sense of something
This website brings together various strands of my visual research since 2008, the year I began my Professional Doctorate in Fine Art at University of East London. The work I have made since 2008 has come out of a continued investigation into the nature of objects and their positioning in landscapes. I decided that objects always existed in landscapes but they were coherent and self contained enough to be detached from that landscape to to handled or studied or used before being repositioned in another landscape. It is the act of isolating, handling, shaping and repositioning objects that defines my creative practice.
The work begins with journeys through the landscapes I have access to. I am a prospector in these landscapes looking for things I can use, taking those things that excite my curiousity. Sometimes all I take is a photograph, sometimes it is an actual thing. Those things that I have found are taken to the studio where they can be given attention and where creative possibilities can emerge from processes that rearrange reframe and reconstitute the object.
This website presents the work in five pages, each of which show a distinct use of media and process. Some of the work exists the physical world of tangible objects while other work uses digital photography and Photoshop to remake objects and landscapes in a virtual space.
The site is organised into five pages.
Turnings- Fragments of pottery made whole through photographic process.
Time taken- A reinvention of landscape photography that incorporates time and banishes single point perspective.
Double take- Found frames that hold a record of the moment they were first encountered .
Shuffle- The virtual space of photoshop becomes an arena for rearranging objects.
Assembly- The reordering of objects in physical space.
Exhibitions
2019 by the way. Group show Lewisham Art House
2017 Mark Sowden Stops and Starts. Solo show at Walthamstow Village Window Gallery.
2015 Things That Are There. Group show Pie Factory. Margate.
2014 Possible Object. Graduation exhibition for Professional Doctorate.
University of East London, Docklands Campus.
2013 After Image. 8th Summer Festival of International Art Emerson Gallery. Berlin.
2013 Writing on the Wall. 39 Orford Road E17
2012 Directional Forces. Residency and exhibition at Artoll Bedburg Hau. Germany
2011 Object Oriented. Leighton Space. Kentish Town, London
2009 Pick and mix. Group show at Woolworths, Leyton, London
2006 -19 E.17 Open studios, Walthamstow,London
1987 Two-person show at RIBA sculpture courtyard, London
1985 Group shows at Art East Gallery Leytonstone, London
Founding member of the Art East Gallery
Employment
1990-2019 Technical Demonstrator at University of East London managing a casting and metal fabrication workshop
Education
2009-2014 Professional Doctorate in Fine Art at University of East London
1984-1985 M.A. Fine Art Manchester Polytechnic
1981-1984 B.A. Fine Art North East London Polytechnic